muscles better and nerves more
by nericearren
Summary: If he is a stray, howling at the moon, then I am his master. Byakuya/Renji. There will come a day when he will reach my gilded cage. Oneshot.


If he is a dog, than I am the one who took him in and trained him; it was my hand that guided him from the filth and the blood into the warmth of a porch. Can you see it? The moon, so bright, the trees slowly losing their blossoms in the gentle wind. See him yapping and yapping and no one hears, no one cares; his cries are that of one wronged, one born wronged, who never knew right. He bears, still, the wounds of a street animal, the scratches received from skirmishes with his fellows, infected, bleeding, open wounds. His mangy coat, skinny frame, tough muscles wrapped around sturdy bones, no extra flesh, no room for greed. His eyes are the wild eyes of a dog untamed, a wolf, hungry and lonely and vicious. None dare approach.

But if there is one who dared, one who saw his fierceness for truth, then it is I. I, who chose him for his bite, who lured him in, enticed him with his own hatred, and made him my creature. I, who relishes in his disobedience, praises his disorderliness; these are things that I myself cannot permit. I cannot do such things, but he can, and I take pleasure in the watching. He is mine, but I am not responsible for what he does. He can run as he pleases, bite whom he wishes. He can yap all day and hurt everyone's ears, and they will not touch him because he is mine. I gave him all the freedom he could want, and that is exactly what has made him domestic. I would not want him if he were a tame creature. I would not want him if he were different.

If he is a dog, then I am his master; he hates me as fighting animals hate their handlers, and I deserve no less. But if he is a dog, than it is my hand that feeds him, my hand that strokes his head and tells him when he has done well. His hunger called to me, his wildness, and I responded in kind. If I could have truly made him mine, I would have; but adopting one street urchin was all my family could bear. Instead, he became my fighting animal, and beat the other animals off in all of the cage matches. If I had adopted him, he would have loved me, but instead he hates me, hates me enough to surpass me, hates me because I gave him all that he has.

His fangs are sharp, and he snaps at any who touch him; but he does not dare snap at me. He may hate me, but I am his master. He may never know how much I respect him, how much I crave loyalty out of love rather than fear-these chains of silence are tight in my mouth, binding my tongue to my cheeks. They snake into my heart(yes, I have a heart)and sink themselves into the very core, and in the very core, where all the chains connect and twist together in a knot, inside of that bundle of steel and iron will, there is he. He is there when I wake in the night, he is there when I have doubts or fears; he is there to remind me of my duty, even as my duty keeps me from my desires, and my desires are him, and his are mine.

The wheel goes around, and those at the bottom come to the top, but us at the top never leave it, even if we wish to. Even if we want to jump down, plunge ourselves into the dark and the rocky and the unknown and live a life with a dog at our side and a world at our feet. The wheel goes around, and more of us birds are caught in our cages, to be yapped at by dogs on the ground who wish to be in the air with us, not knowing the freedom that they will sacrifice if they do so. He does not understand what I have done for him. He does not understand that I have given him what leniency I can, and withheld the judgments due to him for his arrogance. All he understands is that I do not wish him to be alive in this world, for all that I cannot simply put him down as one does a dog. He claims to know the harshness of this world; but if he truly did, then he also would wish for death.

The flowers will forever fall.

I catch one in my hand, and it is a moment-a fleeting moment-and it is beauty in my palm, but I cannot stay on the porch forever, and the dog will not come to my hand. He will take the food I give, the water; he will stay chained up for my sake, and guard my home from all enemies, but he will not permit me to pat him, to cosset him and love him as a friend. He snarls when I am not listening and snaps at my heels uselessly, and he hates me, oh, he hates me. It is a curious line that we walk, between absolute hatred and absolute love. I cannot be friends with a dog. He cannot reach the gilded cage, far above his head. The fleeting moment will pass and reality will come again-the stray will always be wild, untamable, and that which I find beautiful, others fear. They shrink back, whisper, plot, and will soon take my beauty away. It does not take long for happiness to end, so why dare to risk being happy?

Keep howling-nothing will change. Behind his eyes I can see what he craves, I can see it better than he can, and it's not power and it's not love and it's not revenge, it's that unnameable thing that keeps me from other people, that distances him from me. Underneath the hatred, he wants to close that gap as much as I do, but the only way he knows is to fight, and so he does. He snarls when he thinks I cannot hear and nips at my heels because he knows I will not feel it. Maybe he doesn't even know that he's doing it; that he's trying to save me. It does not matter. He cannot.

But forever is a long time to be a good boy, and I am not the pet. There will be a day that he does not shrink from my presence as if it is repulsive, and there will be a day that he will reach into my cage and set me free. He will come to me, then. I will be patient. The individual moments that make up life are fleeting, but I save these and add them up to trade them in later for something bigger, something important that I had thought I had lost, until he came, growling(but a whimpering puppy inside)to my doorstep. On that day, he will let me stroke him and cosset him and be his friend; and we will see which one of us was really tamed. His wildness is mine; my wildness is never to be released again, but he makes me alive. To envy a dog, roaming the streets . . . ! To want to be homeless, without a master-! I could never admit to this, to the secret that lives inside my heart, but he knows it, yes, he knows it, and that is enough. Living is better then, no matter the distance, no matter the hatred. It will pass-it will all pass-and we will remain. He is my creature. I would permit no less.


End file.
